Sharp selling practices

Home selling of assistive products

In 2001, Rica carried out an important mystery-shopping study that helped lead to a change in legislation on home selling of assistive products.

The study, commisioned by Age Concern, aimed to establish evidence of sharp practices by companies selling products such as stairlifts, powered scooters and special armchairs and beds.

The research was carried out in three stages:

consultation with a wide range of other advice agencies on their experiences with the assistive products industry

an in-depth study of nine selected complaints and consideration of six others

six mystery-shopping exercises, in which older people received home visits from companies identified by the advice agencies as the source of consumer complaints

Key findings

Responses from advice agencies showed that they shared Age Concern's suspicions about the operation of some companies. Both the complaint case studies and the mystery-shopping exercise revealed a depressingly similar range of problems being faced by older people when buying these products. The majority of these cases related to products sold to people in their own homes rather than in shops.

The key issues raised were:

influential advertisements

detrimental effect on cancellation rights of invited home visits

over-forceful selling practices

products unsuitable for a person's abilities and needs

poor demonstration

large deposits required

dramatic price reductions to induce purchase

verbal agreements not written into the final contract

restricted consumer rights when products were made to personal specification

pressurised selling of expensive maintenance contracts

poor after-sales service

Recommendations

This research suggested that sharp practices were being carried out by a minority of companies selling assistive products. Because of this, we recommended - and continue to recommend - a range of measures: